<p>Many people haven’t partaken of the great returns so far this year.</p>
<p>Yeah…</p>
<p>That’s true.</p>
<p>I’ve been lucky this year. Hopefully it stays that way.</p>
<p>:)…</p>
<p>I did not sell any premium in intc or msft this week. First time in a long time.</p>
<p>I just didn’t see enough juice in the premiums.</p>
<p>I had sold 8/3 iwm 77 puts for .20 that I bought back for .89 and sold 8/18 76 puts for 1.28. I was going to sell some more weekly puts in spy or iwm last Thursday or Friday but decided to wait and see what happens on Monday.</p>
<p>I have so far overcome my need to sell my aapl 9/22 545 calls. We’ll see how well I can hold on the next few weeks especially if the market starts heading south. I usually position size my trades and unload with a 2 atr loss except for aapl. It is the only stock that I over leverage.</p>
<p>Those 76 puts should go out worthless.</p>
<p>I have been talking about the lack of volume because, one, I am affected by the lack of volume and two, volume has crashed.</p>
<p>One example…</p>
<p>[QQQ:</a> Summary for PowerShares QQQ Trust, Series 1- Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=QQQ]QQQ:”>Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) Stock Price, News, Quote & History - Yahoo Finance)</p>
<p>There were three times this week where the qqqs traded 20 million shares.
That is down from an average of 43 million or so over the last 3 months. ( 40 million shares is light volume).</p>
<p>We should move to a similar system that exists in Japan. The markets should be open for a couple of hours, then close, then reopen for the last hour. </p>
<p>That way, some of us can do something productive during the day. Like read a book.</p>
<p>I asked you earlier if you overleveraged. :)</p>
<p>What is 2 atr in Aapl?</p>
<p>Does your daughter have a specialty in mind?</p>
<p>Those iwm 76 puts were interesting. I typically only need to go out 1 week to get good premium to overcome buying back the earlier 1 dollar higher strike price but apparently the volatility dropped (market participants expecting the market to go up perhaps which it did) and I had to go out 2 weeks.</p>
<p>AAPL is the only one I do this for because I follow the herd and make bone headed decisions from time to time. I’ve still done well with aapl. The atr = 10.3, so if I follow this, I wouldn’t be buying many contracts if any. Everything else I own, is significantly cheaper so I can get a decent number of contracts following this rule. My daughter still hasn’t decided, she’s on her second clinical rotation and dreads the surgical rotation as students typically get pulverized during it.</p>
<p>Usually, when posters talk strategies, I have done those strategies many times over.</p>
<p>Give me an example of how you are using the ATR strategy.</p>
<p>I would probably have problems with a surgery rotation. :)</p>
<p>“and I had to go out two weeks”</p>
<p>That is a problem with these low volatilities.</p>
<p>From what I read and from a couple of people I talk to, it Looks like more firms are adopting the covered/write strategy to capture yield. As more and more firms adopt this strategy, option premiums will go down and make this strategy less attractive.</p>
<p>[ATR</a> Strategies to Test | Afraid to Trade.com Blog](<a href=“http://blog.afraidtotrade.com/atr-strategies-to-test/]ATR”>ATR Strategies to Test – Afraid to Trade)</p>
<p>I don’t get the part about getting a decent number of contracts.</p>
<p>I am not sure how Average True Range helps in investing other than helping you set your stops. It does not predict price movement.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that predicting price movement is the most important thing in investing or trading. I view risk control as the most important thing for both investors and traders.</p>
<p>The article cited above is interesting. I’ve seen a discussion of having a positive return, by going long or short the market by flipping a coin and having good stops and position sizing. I also know of a system that doesn’t involve price movement prediction that buys a certain amount based on the difference between how far the s&p moves from its average volatility on any day. It buys a certain percentage when the market goes down and sells when the market goes up. Over the last 10 years, it has crushed the s&p.</p>
<p>Vix is down to 14.00.</p>
<p>Echh</p>
<p>What does that mean to you? What usually happens when it drops that low for any significant amount of time?</p>
<p>Well…the odds that we are going to crash are extremely low.</p>
<p>Looks like market is going to stay dead for a few weeks</p>
<p>Bob Pisani is doing a good job explaining things. Did you watch him?</p>
<p>The volatilities are higher in the farther out months.</p>
<p>If the volatilities stay around 14, there are going to be fewer opportunities. </p>
<p>The weeklys suck right right now.</p>